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In Daniel’s family cabin he’d found a bolthole from the drama, and every minute he’d spent there had only made it clearer to him that one day he would need a separate space, away from his family. He loved them, even when they exhausted and infuriated him, but he couldn’t live with them.
His fingers tapped impatiently against the desktop.
But he could live with Lottie and Sóley.
He was already doing so, and he wanted the situation to continue—even more now, after what had happened yesterday.
Suddenly he felt as if some invisible force was squeezing his chest. Watching his daughter take her first steps towards him, then catching her as she fell, he had felt something crack inside him as the swell of pride at her reaching the milestone of walking had battled with panic that one day he might not be there to catch her when she fell.
Three amazing, overwhelming, unrepeatable minutes of his life—Lottie’s gift to him.
Only he hadn’t wanted it to be his alone. He’d needed to share it with her. As he’d pulled her into his arms he’d been on the verge of asking her to stay longer, but then she’d offered to send him the video of Sóley walking, so that he could share it with his family, and something had held him back from speaking his thoughts out loud.
And it was still holding him back now.
Fear.
The word tasted sour in his mouth.
He didn’t like it that fear was dictating his actions, but truthfully he was scared of what would happen if he asked her to stay on. Maybe if it had just been sex, as he’d told himself it would be, or if he simply respected her as the mother of his child it would be okay, but as he’d watched, felt, listened to her quiet devastation as she talked about her father’s rejection his anger had been monumental.
Only what if, like the rest of his family, his emotions got too big to be contained?
He pushed the thought away uneasily.
They won’t, he told himself firmly. He had a lifetime of experience in separating himself from his feelings—why should dealing with Lottie be any different?
His eyes snagged on the title of the topmost document in the pile on his desk. Even without the double distraction of Lottie and his daughter, he would find it perilously hard to be distracted by a report on Strategic Pre-interaction Behaviours Using Emerging Technologies. But it was the suggested date of a meeting to discuss the report that made his fingers stop tapping against the smooth desktop.
December twenty-first.
S
óley’s birthday.
His gaze returned to the view outside his window. This time, though, his eyes were drawn upwards to the sky.
After days of pale grey silvery cloud today the sky was a limitless ice-blue, stretching out above the snow-covered fields like the ceiling of a Renaissance cathedral.
It was a perfect day.
He breathed out slowly. Maybe he had found a way to reset his goals after all. It would be a first step for him—a different kind of icebreaker from the one they’d first shared, but something he could give to Lottie.
With the determination of having finally made a decision, he pulled out his phone and punched in a number. ‘Ivar. I need you to be ready in about an hour. No, just a short trip. Thanks.’
Hanging up, he glanced at the watch. Now all he needed to do was talk to Signy.
* * *
Pressing her face closer to the curved window, Lottie gazed down at snow-covered land, half-heartedly trying to imagine what it might look like in summer.
It was her second flight in a helicopter, and once again she had no idea where she was going, but this time, with Ragnar’s fingers wrapped around hers, her feelings were very different. Instead of being tense with nervous apprehension, her stomach was tingling with excitement.
She watched as Ragnar leaned forward and tapped Ivar on the shoulder.
‘Just over the ridge will be fine, if that works for you.’
The pilot nodded. ‘Yes, sir.’
